


first rule of fight club

by yttria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sparring, an addendum to the thrilling saga of 'does keith know how emotions work?' and the answer is still no, can you tell I've never seen Voltron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yttria/pseuds/yttria
Summary: Captain Merkle says the point of sparring is to hone your mind and body, so that when you're attacked you'll instinctively respond -- but sometimes, Keith muses, it's just about hitting someone. He'll say that he's been watching Lance so he doesn't get knocked on his ass, but really he's never been able to look away.or: the fic that's ostentatiously about sparring, but really more about Keith's big obnoxious feelings about the sparring partner he can't get rid of
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Kudos: 19





	first rule of fight club

**Author's Note:**

> Let's pretend it isn't obvious that I've never seen Voltron, just spent a lot of time reading fics at night. Ha ha... my eye bags are not laughing. This is my first fic; hope you enjoy it :)

Captain Merkle says the point of sparring is to hone your mind and body, so that when you're attacked you'll instinctively respond -- but sometimes, Keith muses, it's just about hitting someone.

And when that someone is still smirking after the third round and cracking jokes about Keith's ponytail ( _"Otherwise it gets in my eyes," Keith always snaps back, annoyed that his cheeks start to flush at this point_ ), sometimes he fights a little harder than Merkle would probably approve of when his opponent is another cadet.

"You're not focused, Keith," Merkle chides, from a safe twenty feet away. "He's watching you. If you don't want to lose your advantage, you need to be paying attention."

He growls, "Yes, sir" -- in probably what Merkle would consider an _insubordinate tone_ \-- and narrows his eyes at Lance, who looks relaxed no matter what they're doing.

After two bouts Lance's sweat is a sheen that practically fucking shimmers on his skin, and he hasn't slowed down. It's infuriating.

"What's the move this time, Lance? Wait for Keith to make up his mind?"

Lance sends a sunny smile to Merkle over his shoulder; one second, Keith is watching his eyeteeth flash, and the next Lance is bowling him over, using their momentum to spin Keith onto his stomach and into an arm-hold that wrenches his shoulder when they hit the ground.

There's not enough air in his lungs to make his startled " _Fuck_!" audible, which is probably best given Merkle's attitude toward bad language, but he has enough oxygen to his brain to plant his right foot, shove off, and twist. Lance's grip loosens enough that Keith can wrench his arm free, knocking Lance's jaw in the process.

For a tense, slow second, Keith is on his back and Lance is hovering two inches over him.

Lance's eyes are so blue when he's focused.

"Tap out, Kogane. On your feet!"

He blinks, mumbles an irritated "Yes, sir" that is _definitely_ insubordinate, and rolls out from under Lance and up into a crouch. He can hear Lance laughing, softly, like new bruises in the shape of Keith's escapes aren't forming right now on his skin. 

Lance meets his eyes, almost lazily, with a _come here_ hand flick. "Your move, Pony Boy."

Keith's been waiting to try out a new kick sequence, and now he thinks he's annoyed enough to use it. It starts out with a feint to get him closer, and then another feint and a block to throw Lance off: toes against Lance's ribs, twist in the air, hook his knee around the shoulders. It brings them both down to the ground again, hard, but Lance is smart enough to keep his arms free and his head high enough to avoid impact. He's already striking out at Keith, practically before they've even hit the ground. Keith tightens his thighs around Lance's airway, keeps his hands ready in case Lance tries to hit him again, but after a choked second Lance taps out.

They untangle themselves but don't get up right away, slouched and panting on the mat. Lance swats at Keith's side after a minute without opening his eyes. "God, Keith, coulda warned me about the new move."

He shakes himself, considers his forming bruises and the ache in his shoulder that's starting to hurt in earnest. "Coulda warned me about that arm hold."

"What's the fun in that?"

Merkle clears his throat. "You're done for tonight. I better see both of you in the med bay tonight. Understand? We'll do this again tomorrow."

"Yes sir," they say in unison, Lance pushing himself up in time for a salute that turns into a jab at Keith's cheek. "Just a preview for tomorrow, Kogane."

Merkle mumbles something on his way out, and the lights flicker to 50% after he leaves. Lance's eyes and teeth look even brighter when the light's half gone like this; Keith is pretty sure his entire body just looks pastier, in comparison.

The med bay is empty; every sane person finished training hours ago, and is now doing homework or relaxing somewhere out of sight so they can't be caught by an officer and put to work.

"Peaceful," Lance comments. He's looking out the window. There aren't many windows on the ship, but there's one in the med bay; it might be the closest thing to sympathy the Academy is capable of: _Sorry we got you all banged up on purpose. Here, have a window!_ Keith can't look for long -- it's too much _nothing_ , and it makes the rest of the ship feel unimaginably tiny -- but Lance won't look away. Keith suspects that's the only reason why he puts up so little of a fight coming here.

Lance peels off the padding Merkle makes them wear, eyes still trained somewhat distantly on the window, and his shirt rides up with it. Keith's mouth goes dry. His fingers twitch like an instinct, reaching out for the bruises he put on Lance's ribs; Lance is the tan one, but he bruises so much worse than Keith does.

He clears his throat and gestures a bit awkwardly toward the tank. "You first."

Lance's eyes refocus and slide to his face. "Hm?"

"The tank. You go first. You look worse."

There's a complicated expression on Lance's face, but it slides off to make room for mock-hurt. "You're saying I look bad? I'm the best-looking person on this whole ship." Still, he peels off his uniform and slides obediently into the tank.

Keith looks away. "You're getting your neck too, right?"

Lance pouts and sinks a few inches lower into the gel. " 's not even that bad."

"You've been rubbing at it all day."

"You been watching me?"

Keith shifts, uncomfortable. He crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. "I'm not blind," he says, finally. He can tell it sounds defensive. "You're pretty obvious." Lance is watching him intently. Sometimes Keith forgets how perceptive Lance is -- it's so easy to forget when he's winking and flirting and laughing louder than anyone else on the whole damn ship -- but he's always paying attention.

"If I sink any deeper, I'll get this shit in my hair, and then I'd have to wash it tonight, and that throws off my wash schedule."

Keith is very familiar with the schedule. It hangs, color coded, on Lance's locker in the bathroom, and Lance recites it to Keith at least twice a week.

"Yeah, yeah," he says, cutting Lance off. "Can't mess up the schedule, disrupts the oil levels in the follicles, we get it. But I know it hurts, and I'm not going to massage your neck, you big baby. Get in the gel."

Lance shrugs one shoulder delicately out of the water. (Keith is maybe paying too much attention to the way the gel slides down his skin, too thick for rivulets.) Teasing, Lance says, "The medics did say hand-manipulation might help."

He knows Lance is just egging him on, but still. He's been watching Lance rub at his neck, his face pinched, and hearing him toss around in the bottom bunk. "Fine." He pushes himself off the counter that he'd been leaning on, drags himself across the ten feet to the tank. His thighs rest up against it. "Mamoran special, coming right up." He holds his hands out, but Lance startles away.

"Wha -- I was kidding, Keith."

"I know it hurts." It's not a question. "And the knock out kick sequence didn't help."

Lance shoots him a look. "Are you still trying to apologize?" Keith holds his hands out again, impatiently, and Lance sighs. "Well, when you say it like that…" He maneuvers himself a bit awkwardly in the cramped tank to give Keith better access, and taps a point at the base of his skull.

Keith dips his hands into the gel and spreads it on Lance's neck without preface; Lance's shoulders jump at the sudden cold.

"Watch the hair!" 

He flicks Lance's ear. "You think I'm new? Yeah, I'm watching the hair." It's lucky Lance has started cutting it short on the back and the sides -- _It's called a fade, Keith, have you consumed any recent media in the last decaphoeb?_ \-- because the spot he always rubs at is barely centimeters from the hairline, right up the left side on the thick band of muscle that lines his spine.

He tries to be careful; it doesn't go great. There's some gel in Lance's hair, and some splashed against the stomach of Keith's uniform where Lance reached back and smacked him, but after a few minutes the muscles feel less pinched to Keith's fingers. He doesn't know how a healthy spine is supposed to feel -- Lance's just feels pointy. "Better?" he asks. His voice is hushed by accident, almost tender, and immediately he feels his face go bright red.

Lance tips his head back enough to flash Keith a lazy smile. "That's a Mamoran special, huh? Didn't think they had anything special that didn't involve knives. Like, at least three. And possibly a blood sacrifice."

"This was a blood sacrifice," he says, as seriously as he can. "Your firstborn is now mine."

For a second Lance believes him -- his fingers creep toward his neck, like he'll feel blood there -- and then he narrows his eyes at Keith. "I think you're getting better at human sarcasm, Kogane. Kind of creepy."

"I have a great teacher," he deadpans, except his voice is soft, not a deadpan at all, what the fuck?, and his hands are sliding down Lance's neck to rest on his shoulders without consulting Keith first. His body is committing mutiny. That's it; he's done here. He --

Lance reaches up and squeezes Keith's wrist, gentle and slick with gel, and then yanks. Keith manages, just barely, to avoid tumbling in headfirst by bracing his knees against the tank. "Hey!"

"You're not trying to skip Tank Time, are you? What would Merkle say?"

He grimaces and steps away to take off his uniform. "Something rude, probably." When he turns back to get in, Lance is still in the gel, half-turned around to watch Keith. His eyes are locked somewhere around Keith's chest. He looks -- Keith isn't sure. _Hungry_. Like something with teeth. Keith doesn't trust anything that would come out of his mouth, so he doesn't bother saying anything. He pushes at Lance's shoulder, and when Lance just moves over a few inches instead of getting out, Keith slides in next to him.

He's immediately overwhelmed by the relief of the gel and the heat radiating off of Lance. Their legs are pressed together, Lance's toes poking at the undersides of Keith's thighs, and if he swished his arm half an inch forward he'd practically be able to hold Lance's hand. He takes a second to collect himself, make sure the tops of his shoulders are submerged, and then chances a look at Lance's face. He can't look away. Lance is watching him, his eyes and bottom lip shining somehow in the reflection of the gel. Keith is --

Keith is staring. Still. He's just spent four hours focused Lance's forearms and shoulders and thighs, in theory to pin him down and get Merkle off his back… but he's long past pretending that he's ever been able to look away from Lance.

Lance leans forward. "Kogane, you… " he starts, but doesn't finish the sentence. "God. Keith."

He opens his mouth to say _Fancy meeting you here_ or _Glad you haven't forgotten my name_ , but what he says instead is "I'm sorry about your neck."

The wire between them stops sparking, the mood dead; Keith regrets it immediately. Lance closes his mouth with a click and leans back, blows air out of his mouth. " 's not your fault. This is how sparring works, remember?"

Keith reaches out on impulse. He's not sure what he's reaching for; his fingers end up tracing an L down Lance's neck and across his collar bone, feeling the way the skin is silky under the gel. "I know," he says quietly. When his hand falls, Lance grabs it and squeezes. He's so close to Keith again.

Lance glances down, obvious, at Keith's lips, and sucks in a shaky little breath. "Can I--"

The lights slam on as a herd of new recruits traipses in. Lance lurches backward to get a safe distance away. They don't say anything else. Lance splashes some gel half-heartedly in Keith's direction and then clambers out. Keith watches his thighs flex with more than a healthy degree of interest and waits another moment before following, boneless from the gel and shocked silent at his own daring.

They sit together in the mess hall with Hunk and think of funny nicknames for Pidge, who's either studying or spying from the vents. Hunk steals a gel cube from Lance, and Keith takes advantage of the offended squawking to steal another. He kicks Lance under the table just to see Lance's mouth drop open in indignation, like he wasn't expecting it. It's the same routine like it's been every night Keith can remember, since weeks (months? years?) ago when Lance stuck a hand in his face and demanded a truce. The very first group dinner Hunk convinced Keith to arm wrestle (and won, obviously), and Pidge quoted Keith's personal file so he'd know she read it and then kicked him in the shins. Lance hadn't managed to shut his mouth for more than thirty seconds at a time, which was his version of being welcoming and reserved, and from then on Keith had been a part of the Bro Squad. He can't say he minds.

The same routine like every night, but tonight every time he looks over to Lance he sees Lance looking back. There's something heavy between them. There are words caught his throat that he needs to get out, he can taste them, but he doesn't know how to cough them up in a way that makes sense. (Maybe it's just the extra gel cube, not sitting right in his stomach.) He's planning to think on it during the night, but when they pass the little half-hallway on the way to the dorms, he grabs Lance's arm, bullies him into the shadowed corner. "I can't stand it, Lance, I don't -- would you…? --" The words are still caught. "I can't tell what you're thinking."

It's not what he meant to say; actually, he doesn't know what he meant to say. He's not sure he's been thinking at all, just staring at Lance's face all dinner like the instructions for what comes next will be written on his freckles, connect-the-dots style. 

Lance isn't quite smiling. His eyes feel hot on Keith's face. After a second he says, too casually to be anything except very intentional, "I'm thinking about a boy." Keith swallows. "He's cute and he knocked me on my ass again today, and I wanted to kiss him, right in front of Merkle." His hand is wrapped around Keith's bicep, right above the elbow; Keith is clutching at the side of Lance's jacket desperately.

He's not sure he could unclench his fingers if Merkle poked his head around the corner right now and ordered him to. "Why didn't you? Kiss him, I mean." Breathless.

"Why didn't I kiss Merkle? I don't know if we have time for the whole list, I mean, just start with his _face_ \--"

Keith shoves Lance a little, pressing him against the wall. "You know what I meant, asshole." His face is hot but he feels a little more like they're in comfortable territory now; it's still them. He knows how to mess with Lance, he knows how Lance messes back.

Lance grins, leans back against the wall comfortably. "Can you imagine how many push-ups he'd give us as punishment, if..." He coughs, goes a little pink. "You know. Our arms would fall off," he says, still a little pink, at the same time that Keith blurts, "I wanted to."

(Tonight he's going to sit down with himself and practice not blurting things out, maybe that could be a fun skill to learn. Shiro would be fucking thrilled.)

"I wanted to kiss you then." 

"You could kiss me now, if that's something you're still considering," Lance offers, blinking innocently.

He scoffs, "Well, _now_ I'm not sure," as if they're not leaning in at the same time. The first try is crooked; their teeth click together, but when Keith tries to pull away, Lance makes a little sound in the back of his throat and slides his other hand up to Keith's jaw to correct the angle.

It's nice. Not that Keith has anything else to compare it to, really; even when he used to close his eyes at night and let himself picture it, kissing Lance and Lance kissing back, there were a lot of details he had to fill in. What would Lance taste like? What did his hair feel like, when it was floppy and half-dried after a shower? (And he could never decide if Lance's freckles would be bumpy or not.) It wasn't a "productive mental exercise," and most times it ended with him dragging himself to the bathroom to splash water on his face. 

He was expecting it to be a lot harder than it is. 

Lance's tongue is slippery, his mouth is hot, and his hand on Keith's jaw stays there, possessive and comforting. Keith lets a hand slide up to cup the back of Lance's neck, lets his fingers drag through Lance's strictly-maintained hair. It's not setting off fireworks behind his eyelids or anything, but Keith could probably stand here for hours. He would, except that Lance pulls back, and leans his forehead against Keith's and whispers, "Jesus."

"You --" He has to fight to get the words out around his smile; Lance never sets up his jokes so well. "-- You can call me Keith." 

Lance pinches his side and Keith jostles him back, watching Lance grin at him and feeling something in his chest like… he doesn't know. Like he's relaxing after waiting, tense and nervous, for so long. Like his throat is closed around something too heavy to say out loud. He wants to tell Lance something that would matter: _I've been imagining this since the first time I saw you shoot in the sims. I like the haircut a little too much, when you first cut it I spent a lot of time thinking about it when I should have been studying. When I think about loving somebody, you're the closest thing I can imagine_.

But he's not a poet. Instead he says, "We're still sparring tomorrow, right?"

Lance scoffs. "Like Merkle would let us stop. But, hey -- you're gonna be easy to beat, now, huh? Now that we both know you find me so wildly attractive that you can't keep your hands off me." He leans back, and tugs Keith with him. Smiles gentle and sweet. "Secret weapon. I got you figured out, Kogane."

"You got something figured out, alright," Keith says, pinching Lance's arm and mentally sorting through the new attack sequences that he's been working on, as a surprise.

They're a little late for lights-out, and a little late for breakfast, and _really_ late for first classes. They make it on time for sparring practice, though, on direct threat of disembowlment; Keith is pretty sure that the Academy Board wouldn't let Merkle actually hurt a student, but given how far they are from everything else and the miraculous healing powers of the tanks, he's not going to take his chances. 

"What's the plan, today, Keith? Stare at Lance like always until he knocks you over?"

"No, sir," and what he means is _yes_. Obviously he's watching Lance. Not like there ever really was an alternative, but now he's watching Lance, and he knows Lance is watching back. (A few inches under Lance's collar is a mark Keith left. He knows what Lance's freckles feel like. This morning Lance kissed him and laughed into his mouth because Keith had made fun of James.) 

"Well?" 

Lance is grinning at him, just barely. Hands up -- waiting. "What's it gonna be, Kogane?" After this Lance is going to hold his hand in the tank. 

He takes a second to plan out the move ( _three step in, dodge left, feint and pin arm, pin leg and twist_ ), gives up on holding back his smile, and pounces.


End file.
